


I Am Yours Till They Come

by lit_chick08



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother-Sister Relationships, F/M, Family Secrets, Logic has no place here, POV Female Character, Secret Relationship, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:38:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t love Rhaegar.  She isn’t even certain she <i>likes</i> him.  But he is kind enough beneath his nonsensical ramblings about promised princes and general naivety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Yours Till They Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeEnchantedEve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/gifts).



> Title comes from "Devil's Spoke" by Laura Marling.

She makes the decision that defines the rest of her life like she made so many that came before it: impulsively, in anger, with spite. The stories that will come will paint her many ways – usually victim or whore depending whose side you are on – but they will always forget she is a she-wolf.

At Harrenhal when the scholars will say it began, Lyanna hadn’t thought much of the prince at all. Appreciation, that is how she would have described her feelings towards Rhaegar Targaryen: appreciation for keeping her secret, for telling his father he had not found the mystery knight, for complimenting her on her skill. And then when he placed that damn crown of roses into her lap, there was frustration at his stupidity, anger at Brandon for acting as if it was her fault, and disappointment at being hurried back to Winterfell. Rhaegar ruined her adventure with his fucking flowers.

Robert gripped her too tightly before they parted, he and Ned returning to the Vale while she rode on with Brandon and Benjen to Winterfell. His strong hands left bruises on her hips when he squeezed too tightly, his mouth brutal against hers in a sick mockery of a goodbye kiss. She felt as if he tried to mark her like a dog did to a tree, and it pushed her halfway to what came next.

The girl in Wintertown, the one with the bonny babe with black hair and Baratheon blue eyes, did the rest.

“How dare he!” she raged then, pacing in the godswood as Benjen watched with wide eyes. Old Nan always said Lyanna’s tempers were like winter storms, quick to change and able to bury you before you even realized the storm was dangerous. Benjen, the third brother, the babe their father all but turned over to Nan for raising when his birth killed their mother, knew her better than Brandon or Ned ever did; he knew when to approach and when to back away. “How _dare_ he!”

“Lya – “

“Grabbing me like a toy someone else wanted to play with when all along he’s getting bastards on every serving girl and whore from here to Dorne!” She threw open her arms and declared to Benjen and the weirwoods, “I will never be Robert Baratheon’s wife, I will not!”

“But you’re betrothed. Father won’t break it. You can’t say no.”

It has always been her fatal flaw; the moment someone says she cannot do something, Lyanna immediately sets out to do it. The stories will leave out this detail as well.

Possibility arrives in the godswood a fortnight later, delivered by a man in a hooded cloak she does not recognize until the hood falls back to reveal a shock of golden hair. Without his white armor, the great Ser Arthur Dayne looks like any other man, albeit a great deal more handsome. He begs her pardon and gives her a letter sealed with a dragon.

The proposal is insane, the very embodiment of Targaryen madness, but Lyanna does not know what else to do. Brandon weds Catelyn Tully in a fortnight; her wedding to Robert is to follow four moons’ turns after that. Save sneaking aboard a ship in White Harbor, Rhaegar Targaryen and his ramblings of prophecy seems the only realistic option.

“Tell him I say yes,” she directs Ser Arthur, and she can see something flash in his violet eyes, something she will later learn to read perfectly while trapped in a tower in Dorne, but she does not question it then.

She is to meet Rhaegar when the moon is at its peak that very night. He tells her to bring nothing, tell no one, but Lyanna never responds to direction well. She sneaks into Benjen’s chamber as she has a thousand times before and tells him where she is going, what she is doing.

They are nearly nose-to-nose on his pillow, and she sees the fear and tears in Benjen’s eyes. If he had asked her to stay, begged her not to leave him all alone at Winterfell with their distant father and the ghost of their mother, she would have. With Brandon and Ned fostered away, she and Benjen were a team, children raised by servants with a father who loved them but looked at them in confusion, as if he was not sure what to do with them or where they came from. Benjen was her best friend, her favorite brother, the one she taught to swordfight and climb trees and race their ponies through the wolfswood; he was the only one who could ever make her change her mind.

Except Benjen was not the sort to try to make her change her mind, which was why she loved him most. Brandon wanted her to do what was best for Brandon, and Ned wanted her to do whatever was best for House Stark; only Benjen asked what she wanted.

Which, she supposes later on, is why Benjen _didn’t_ say anything other than a solemn promise never to tell a soul what he knew.

He is the best of them, poor, forgotten Benjen. The stories will leave that out too.

* * *

She doesn’t love Rhaegar. She isn’t even certain she _likes_ him. But he is kind enough beneath his nonsensical ramblings about promised princes and general naivety.

She _does_ like Ser Arthur. While they travel to Dorne on horseback, she rides beside him and asks him about Starfall and the places he’s seen, the adventures he’s had. The other knights barely acknowledge her and Rhaegar speaks to her as if she is somewhat simple, but Arthur is different.

On the night Rhaegar first beds her, between the wine she drinks to relax and the slivers of moonlight filtering into the dark room, when she looks up at him to see light hair and violet eyes, she pretends it is Arthur parting her thighs, taking her maidenhead, telling her she is going to bring a great child into the world.

The stories certainly will not tell of this.

* * *

Rhaegar beds her often, and though he is never rough with her, never forces her, Lyanna finds herself unbearably bored by it all. _This_ is what Robert could not stop doing? _This_ is the thing the stable boys whispered about with such fervor?

She says something to that effect one afternoon not long after they arrive at the building Rhaegar stupidly named the Tower of Joy, and Arthur nearly spits out his wine as he chokes off a laugh.

“Do not say that to the prince,” Arthur advises with a smile, “or you will destroy the poor man.”

“If a man can be destroyed so easily, mayhaps he deserves to be,” she counters.

Arthur studies her for a moment before he suggests, “You could tell him what you like.”

“How would I know what I like if he is the only man I’ve ever bedded?”

A blush rises on Arthur’s pale cheeks, and it endears her to him even more. “I suppose I am the wrong person to ask. The Kingsguard makes vows.”

“Like the Night’s Watch, I know.” Lyanna quirks an eyebrow, wondering how much more she can make him blush. “But before you took vows, did you enjoy it? Or did you take your vows as a maid?”

The look Arthur gives her is hotter than the Dornish desert. “I enjoyed it very much.”

He drains his wine cup, leaves her alone in the room she shares with Rhaegar and does not return again for nearly three days. Lyanna does not know where he goes or what he does; all she knows is boring Ser Gerold keeps her company until Rhaegar returns, and she spends her nights with her hand tucked between her thighs, touching the places Rhaegar never finds and imagining it is Arthur’s hand.

When Arthur finally returns, he does not visit her chamber again until Rhaegar rides for the Trident.

This part of the story never leaves the Tower.

* * *

Rhaegar does not tell her what is going on in Westeros, but she knows something is. The prince and his men quiet whenever she enters a room, and she wonders how much trouble she’s left in her wake.

It is Arthur who tells her, who breaks his vow to serve Rhaegar before any other, who escorts her on a walk and informs her that her father and Brandon are dead, that Ned and Robert have started a war to get her back.

She collapses to her knees, the air sucked from her lungs, and when she can finally breathe again, it is to shriek to the gods, to offer up her life in exchange for those Rhaegar’s mad father has taken.

The gods do not take her.

Instead they take the babe that has barely taken root inside her, Targaryen blood turning her thighs crimson.

She supposes it should upset her, losing her child, but the vindictive part of her heart that lead her to leaving Winterfell thinks it is only right. If Aerys Targaryen has taken her family, it seems only fitting the gods deprive him of the promised prince Rhaegar wants to give him.

Arthur is the only one who knows this part of the story.

* * *

Here is how it happens.

Rhaegar leaves, taking Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell with him. He trusts Arthur more than the others, claps him on the shoulder and makes him promise to keep her and their child safe. Arthur agrees and she plays the simpering lady Rhaegar likes to pretend she is, and she watches the trio ride until they are out of sight.

“We cannot do this,” Arthur insists, his voice rougher than Lyanna’s ever heard it when she appears at his door in only a thin robe.

Lyanna is exhausted from “cannot.” 

She drops her robe, and Arthur drops his honor.

It is not a fair exchange, but Lyanna knows there is nothing fair left in this world. The path behind her is littered with the bodies of the people she loved, struck down because of her choices, and that alone has damned her to hells. Bedding Arthur is the least terrible thing she’s done in months.

“I’ve never broken my vows before,” Arthur tells her when she lies in the circle of his arms tracing patterns on his broad chest.

“That’s because you’re honorable.”

She says it like a compliment, but it tastes like a condemnation on her tongue.

It takes a fortnight for Rhaegar and his knights to return, and Lyanna spends every moment she can in Arthur’s arms, taking his honor and replacing it with her desperation: desperation for connection, for peace, for a moment’s pleasure before the pain of loss asserts itself again. 

It is selfish, but Lyanna has never claimed to be _un_ selfish.

The selfishness, _that_ will end up in some of the stories.

* * *

Rhaegar tells her they will name their child Visenya. He holds no doubt she carries a girl, that her daughter will complete the prophecy that will usher in the promised prince. Lyanna isn’t entirely certain if Aegon is meant to be the subject of this prophecy or if Rhaegar’s children will bring it into being, but either way Rhaegar is adamant: the child must be a girl.

Only a few will know this part of the story.

* * *

Rhaegar rides out to the Trident to face Robert when her stomach has stretched to the point of being uncomfortable, her back aching terribly. He thinks she will deliver their child in a moon’s turn, and Lyanna is not entirely certain how she will be able to spin this lie. She is not even certain she cares. All she can think of is Ned, never far from Robert’s side, and Benjen alone at Winterfell, and gods, she just wants to go home.

“Will you take me?” she begs Arthur one night, tears drenching her cheeks. “Please, Arthur, take me home.”

It is the line he will not cross, and it is a sin she will not forgive.

* * *

Rhaegar does not return, and her knights – they are hers now, hers and the babe’s – begin to panic. Their prince is dead, King’s Landing is sacked, the Lannisters do unspeakable things to poor Princess Elia and her children, and Lyanna knows this is what her anger and Rhaegar’s delusions have wrought.

“The Lannisters will kill the child you carry,” Lord Commander Hightower tells her one evening, his serious face downright dour while Ser Oswell and Arthur stand behind him. “They are purging the land of Targaryens.”

 _But my child is a Dayne_ , she wishes to say but bites her tongue. She has brought so many people down in the past year; she will not add Arthur to the list. 

“There is a ship at Starfall,” the Lord Commander continues, “and once you have the babe, we’ll escort you there. We’ll board and sail for Braavos. There is talk that is where Prince Viserys and the newborn princess will be.”

“I want to go home.”

All three of the men shake their heads. Under different circumstances, such synchronicity would have made her laugh; now it feels like a panel of men deciding her fate.

“Winterfell is no longer an option.”

Lyanna suspects it stopped being an option the moment she snuck into the godswood to meet Rhaegar, and she curses herself for not realizing it sooner.

Her shortsightedness will be mentioned in the stories.

* * *

Arthur brings a wet nurse and a midwife from Starfall to attend her. The midwife is older than Old Nan, but the wet nurse is a young woman called Wylla that Lyanna likes very much. She will come to Braavos with them to also assist with the tiny princess born on Dragonstone, and Lyanna debates telling Wylla the truth.

There ends up being no time. Only a few days after Wylla’s arrival, Lyanna awakes to crippling pain and soaking sheets. Her labor comes on like a blizzard, and she screams until her voice is hoarse.

“I want Arthur,” she moans after a particularly terrible bout of pain, and the sour faced midwife clucks her tongue and tells her the birthing room is no place for a man.

Lyanna repeats herself only for the midwife to admonish her again. When the next pain comes on, Lyanna braces herself against the bed, throws her head back, and howls like the wolf she’s nearly forgotten she is.

She does not recognize the creature the midwife deposits on her belly. Long limbed, covered in blood and other fluids, wailing as indignantly as she was only a moment before, it does not resemble a baby so much as a character in one of Old Nan’s stories. Wylla moves to clean it and help sever the navel cord, and she is the one who tells Lyanna the child is a boy.

The Targaryen girl Rhaegar hoped for so desperately is instead another boy for House Dayne, but it will not keep the poor thing any safer.

When the baby is returned to her, Lyanna sees there is nothing about him that speaks of his paternity; this child is a Stark in all things.

She has no name for him but Snow, and he remains without a name until Ned comes.

* * *

The fever comes on suddenly, taking her strength and making her body burn like wildfire. The midwife says she has the birthing fever and will require a maester if she is to survive; she rides out to fetch the maester from Starfall, and Lyanna is only vaguely aware of it. She is too weak to hold her nameless babe, the burden of his care falling to Wylla, and Lyanna wants to ask if Arthur has seen him, if Arthur has held him.

Exhaustion is constant. Time begins to bleed together. She is not even certain how long she has been asleep when she wakes to the sound of metal meeting metal, shouts coming from below.

“Hide,” she manages to choke out to Wylla, certain the Lannisters have found them, but Wylla only tucks herself into the corner of the room between a large armoire and the wall. Lyanna wants to scream for her to run, to keep the child safe, but she has no words. She has no strength.

When the door of her chamber opens, Lyanna expects men clad in gold and crimson. It is only when she sees the direwolf, when she sees Ned’s serious face, she remembers what it is to feel safe.

This is the part of the story that is truly only a story to her. The fever takes her memory, but it does not take her life.

Later she’ll wish it had.

* * *

Rhaegar is dead, his chest destroyed by Robert’s warhammer. Arthur is dead, slain by Ned and little Howland Reed in a desperate bid to “rescue” her. And the babe, the son Ned believes belongs to Rhaegar, still has no name. What is worse is she cannot even bear to look at her child, let alone care for him. The nameless boy with a murdered father means as much to Lyanna as a sack of flour, and she cannot even feel badly about it.

Ned calls the child Jon in honor of ancient Jon Arryn. Lyanna has never met Ned’s foster father, but she has always associated him with taking Ned away the same way Lord Ryswell took away Brandon. He tells her that he honored Brandon’s betrothal, that Catelyn Tully is at Winterfell with Benjen and the babe she had while Ned was at war. Robb, Ned tells her proudly, and Lyanna recoils from the name visibly enough that Ned seems startled by it.

“Robert has searched for you every day since you were gone.”

Lyanna does not even bother looking at Ned, keeping her eyes fixed on the ocean crashing against Starfall’s rocks. In the distance she sees Ashara and Allyria walking the coastline. “Robert let Tywin Lannister kill children. He’ll kill Jon too.”

“He wouldn’t.”

Ned sounds so certain, so absolute, Lyanna can do nothing but scoff, “You’re an idiot.”

She wishes Benjen was here. Even Brandon with his outbursts would have been preferable to Ned with his honor and silences.

But most of all she wants Arthur. 

The part of the story no one will ever fully appreciate is how just how little Lyanna Stark actually got what she wanted.

* * *

They are safely ensconced in Winterfell before Ned sends a raven to King’s Landing letting Robert know she is alive. If he mentions Jon, Lyanna isn’t certain, but when a letter arrives for her with a crude stag’s seal written in nearly illegible scrawl, she realizes Ned told him everything.

_What Rhaegar did is not your fault. I can forget it. We can still marry. But it is better if you leave the abomination Rhaegar forced on you. I’m sure Ned can arrange for someone to take it if you do not want to deal with it yourself._

She knows he thinks it a magnanimous offer, and it is that which makes her dream of shattering his thick skull with the hammer that ended Rhaegar’s life.

He marries Cersei Lannister in what is said to be a grand ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor. Everyone whispers about how sad it is, poor King Robert having lost his first love to Rhaegar’s madness, and there are rumors no one sees Lyanna Stark, that she has gone mad from what was done to her.

Lyanna likes that story the best. No one bothers a mad woman.

* * *

Benjen decides to take the black, and to say it devastates her is an understatement. When he tells her, Lyanna can do nothing but weep. She asks him to stay. She _begs_ him to stay. 

“You cannot leave me here,” she whimpers, so pathetic even to her ears. Benjen is the person who keeps her sane, who doesn’t push, who does not treat her as if she died in Dorne. Ned loves her and Catelyn is never anything but polite, even tending to Jon on the days Lyanna cannot bring herself to leave her chambers, but Lyanna cannot find comfort at Winterfell the way she once did.

And now Benjen is leaving.

He could be mean; if he wanted, he could be downright cruel. But Benjen is Benjen, and all he does instead is take her hands in his and counter, “You cannot ask me to stay.”

The night before he is to depart for the Wall, Lyanna finds her way down the hallway in the dark, creeping into his chamber just as she had two years earlier. Benjen is awake, obviously expecting her, and he lifts the furs for her to slip beneath them. 

“I’m sorry,” is all she can manage, hot tears falling onto his pillow.

“I never told. I never will.”

She never thought he would. Men like Benjen do not break their word.

* * *

There is nothing of Arthur in Jon. Mayhaps if she tilts her head, she can see Arthur’s build in Jon’s long limbs and lithe build, so different from Robb’s stocky frame. But mostly all anyone sees is black curls and Stark grey eyes. They see a child that looks more like Ned than Ned’s trueborn son, and Lyanna sees how her brother treats her son the same as he does his own.

Catelyn has Sansa during the last year of winter, and by the time Ned returns from the Greyjoy Rebellion with the surly little kraken, Arya has been born as well. Lyanna is not the sort of woman who has ever cooed over babies, and while she appreciates that her nieces are cute, she has no desire to dote upon them. Even now, years since what the people now call Robert’s Rebellion, Lyanna is not certain what to do with her own child.

Jon is a good boy; everyone agrees. He is quieter than his cousin, more serious without a doubt, but everyone says Jon is a kind child who loves Robb as if Ned’s boy is his brother. To their credit, Ned and Catelyn treat him well, give Jon what Lyanna cannot. It is not that she does not want to; she simply has no idea how to relate to Jon. By the time the fog of grief lifted, Jon was not a baby any longer, and when he needed something, he learned to go to anyone else.

It is Ned who comes to her and suggests she foster Jon with Robb in the Vale. She is not as opposed to fostering as Catelyn, who is unhappy at the idea of sending away her firstborn son. But by the time Bran is born, the arrangements are made and Lyanna must say goodbye to her son.

Jon is serious as ever when she hugs him goodbye in the yard. He promises to be a good boy, to listen to Lord Arryn, and to write her letters once every moon’s turn. Lyanna smiles, smoothes a hand over his curls, and wishes not for the first time she could be the sort of mother he deserves.

The stories the smallfolk tell end with Jon’s birth. They all seem to forget he had a whole life to live after that.

* * *

They call her the Ghost of Winterfell.

Not to her face, of course, or where Ned can overhear; there is enough respect for House Stark not to say such things where their lord could hear. But the benefit of being a ghost is listening to conversations never intended for your ears, and Lyanna becomes an expert at hearing what is said about her.

She plays into their beliefs, behaving the way she never would have been allowed to do as a child. Her hair does not get brushed, her gowns do not get mended, and she takes to walking the grounds without shoes; sometimes Ned will find her in the godswood and bring her back, treating her as if she is a horse that will spook easily, and Lyanna isn’t certain whether she loves him or hates him.

It is not Ned’s fault she left with Rhaegar. It is not Ned’s fault she fell in love with Arthur. It is not Ned’s fault he killed an innocent man in his attempts to protect her. It is not Ned’s fault she has never been able to look at her son without being overwhelmed with sadness.

But Ned is the only one who survived, and so he is the one who bears the brunt of her pain.

She spends a great deal of time with Ned’s little Arya. If Lyanna is the Ghost of Winterfell, Arya is the only one who sees her. Whenever she tries to escape the castle, inevitably she finds Arya trailing in her wake, unkempt despite Catelyn’s best efforts, chattering away once she’d been spotted. In many ways Arya reminds her of Brandon with her brashness and quick temper, and Lyanna doesn’t mind her company so much.

Sansa is Ned’s daughter through and through, and she is just as uncertain how to approach Lyanna as her father. She is a dreamer, Ned’s Sansa, who wants to be a princess. It may yet happen; Robert and his bride have two sons.

When the offer of betrothal is made, no one will ask Lyanna’s opinion. If they had, mayhaps it would have prevented another twisting story.

* * *

A year before Jon Arryn dies, Robb and Jon come to Winterfell to visit. Lyanna barely recognizes the little boys who went south, replaced with tall, bearded men with deep voices who draw the eye of every young lady who passes.

He is all Arthur now. His hair is still black and his eyes still Stark grey, but all Lyanna can see in his walk, his gestures, his very bearing is the great Ser Arthur Dayne. 

It is the strangest thing, seeing someone you lost reflected in the face of someone you never wholly claimed as your own.

“Do you like it in the Vale?” she asks him one morning when they break their fast together, wondering when it became so hard to speak, to even remember what it took to hold a true conversation.

Jon nods, ever agreeable. “Aye. But I am going to take the black like Uncle Benjen.”

“You’re certain? Have you ever loved anyone?”

He turns a ferocious shade of crimson, and it makes her smile. “Once, a girl called Mya Stone.”

“A bastard then.”

Jon’s face folds in confusion. “What does that matter?”

He is a bastard too. Lord Arryn may adore him, Robb may call him “brother,” but he is Jon Snow. There is no inheritance for him, no lordship or place but what he can make for himself. She thinks of Arthur’s tales of Starfall, of Dawn, and she blurts out, “Would you like to hear about your father?” 

Darkness descends over Jon’s handsome face as he shakes his head. “No. I don’t want to hear a word.”

The right thing to do is tell him, to at least assure him that the stories are not true. Even if she does not give him Arthur’s name, she could attempt to wipe the word “rapist” from Rhaegar’s legacy.

But it has been so long since she’s told the truth, Lyanna has forgotten how, so instead she smiles and asks him more inane questions about the Eyrie and when he will head to the Wall.

* * *

Lord Arryn dies unexpectedly, and suddenly Robert’s court is descending upon Winterfell. Lyanna hides when they arrive, knowing Robert will forgive her the slight, and she curls up around Brandon’s likeness in the crypts, resting her head against his stone knee.

Robert finds her on the third day, and if she did not know it was him, she would not have recognized him. He is astoundingly fat, and there is nothing handsome about his face now. She watches him warily as he approaches, Ned at his back, and Lyanna desperately wishes he’d just forget her already.

He calls her “sweetling” and brings her a feather, of all things, and the way he looks at her is as doe eyed as the way Sansa looks at the oldest prince. Lyanna says nothing, simply staring, and when Robert reaches forward as if to touch her hair, she recoils, nearly hissing.

“I’m sorry, sweetling,” he gruffly says, and she wants to scream that she is not his sweetling, she is not his _anything_ , and it was her choice, not Rhaegar’s. She may be the Ghost of Winterfell, but Robert is chasing a different ghost entirely, one who never existed except in his own mind.

The story Robert tells is different from the ones everyone else tells.

* * *

Bran falls.

Ned marches south.

A boy barely into manhood becomes Lord of Winterfell.

A mad king orders her brother killed.

This is a story Lyanna knows all too well.

And as she hides in the crypts with Bran, Rickon, the wildling woman, and Hodor, Lyanna wonders how this story can possibly end happily for House Stark.


End file.
